Metabolize

The power of the pause

Years ago, I dated a man who talked too much about his exes. He said these women were, without exception, crazy, demanding, mean, and still interested in him. If one of them so much as checked out his profile on LinkedIn he was convinced she wanted him back.

Now I understand, like most of us who have ever been on a date, that behavior like that is a big red flag.  The common denominator in all those relationships was, of course, him. But it also showed that he lacked the common sense or good judgement to understand his audience or the appropriate social behavior. He was stuck. Stuck in a narrative, an emotional loop, mired in a morass of victimhood and hurt.

There are work analogies to this type of behavior. The person who is interviewing for a job and says bad things about their previous position or boss. The one who had a conflict with Roger in accounting seven years ago and can’t let it go.

I’ve written before about how anger can mask other emotions and that it’s important to metabolize that anger so you can understand what’s underneath. But metabolizing emotion is critical to getting out of whatever emotional morass you are stuck in so you can show better judgement and not inadvertently wave a red flag at work.

Here’s the pattern.

A thing happens. It hurts you. It is probably a bad thing. Being accused of something you didn’t do, being laid off or not getting the promotion you were promised, being sexually harassed or discriminated against. A betrayal of trust, a reversal of fortune, a bitter disappointment. Most of us are going to experience something like this in our careers.

You have feelings about it. The feelings are intense.

Name it

Ideally, you can name those emotions. The ones on the surface and those underneath, the old wounds that got activated, the way it reminded you of another bad thing that happened long ago. The best thing to do is to draw the full map of the emotional response to the experience and understand what was now and what was then.

The map shows the highway of what happened now as well as all the small roads of what happened in the past that connect to the highway of now, down to the dirt trail that peters out at the tent where someone was cruel to you at camp when you were eleven.

Often, we don’t or won’t take the time to draw that map. We don’t want to get to the dirt trail that reminds us of old humiliations. We want to stay angry or aggrieved, we want to make it only about the other person’s actions and nothing to do with our expectations or behavior. Which means we don’t have accurate information about what we are dealing with, we don’t know where we are going.

Metabolize it

Metabolizing our emotional reactions to difficult experiences lets us respond more skillfully. It helps us move on from the stuck places. People can process or metabolize in lots of different ways. Anything that moves you forward can work.

When something bad happens to me, I talk about it. I am lucky to have a few confidantes who I can process a bad thing with. I can vent, rage, and get all the validation I want. “What the actual fuck!” is usually what I want to hear at first.

Then I have people who can gently, after the venting is over, give me more information. They can help me see the byways that wind away from the event. Since I’m blessed with friendships that have lasted decades, my friends carry my history. They remember when my mom did that thing, and they can sometimes make a connection to why a particular event might be excessively painful.

I also have friends who, at the right time, point out ways I might have contributed. Why was I expecting this person, who has consistently been unkind, to suddenly be kind? Did I have unrealistic expectations? Was I trying to control someone or something? Was I doing the same thing and expecting different results?

Then I write. I write about what happened, mostly in a journal. I write with a pen on paper in a notebook. I type like the wind so writing with pen on paper slows me down and that helps me be more thoughtful.

Plenty of people don’t process by talking or writing, they process through action. They metabolize by exercising or cleaning their kitchen, or digging in the dirt, or fixing something.

Others have spiritual practices that are helpful around gratitude or compassion or understanding what part they might have played.

They all can help.

The Pause

Once you have named and metabolized the emotions, you are less likely to get hijacked. You can pause.

I’ve worked in some bad places where bad things happened to me. If I am trying to get a project or a new client, and that bad place comes up, I often have a reflexive reaction. I want to say that guy was an asshole, or that place was a cesspool. But, because I have metabolized all those experiences, I usually have the ability to pause. In the pause I can assess three things.

1.        Is this an appropriate venue for me to talk about this? Is this the right audience and the right time?

2.        Does talking about this serve my goals here – in this case, does it make me seem like a person with good judgement and the ability to regulate my emotions appropriately who you would want to hire as an executive coach?

3.        If the answer to both of those is no, then how can I quickly regulate myself and steer towards a different topic? I might take a deep breath and file it away for later so I can call one of my friends after work and tell them that motherfucker came up in conversation and metabolize some more.

At a certain level, most people understand that they don’t want to trash talk anyone and they get this. Some people reading this are going to be nodding and thinking they’ve got this. But there are subtleties that can elude even senior people. I’ve seen it. The hurt seeps through, or the anger. Which can be ok. If you’re talking to an executive coach or mentor, or you’re safe enough to be vulnerable and authentic then show your feelings. But ask yourself those questions. Is this the right time and place? Does this help me get to my goals? If you’re interviewing for a new role, then yeah, probably not the best time to talk about how the CEO was an asshole when he was your direct supervisor, if you want the promotion.

We’ve all seen that person who is blazing with rage, yelling red-faced and staunchly asserting that they are not angry. Don’t be that person. Know what you are feeling and how it comes across. Because others will see it.

Learning how to name, identify and process the hard things can give you access to the power of the pause, the ability to stop and check in to make sure you are demonstrating the maturity and good judgement you want to show, when it counts.

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